This is the second of a four part podcast series on Cisco’s Open Network Environment or Cisco ONE. Cisco ONE consist of three initiatives; OnePK, Campus Slicing via SDN/OpenFlow and Virtual Network Overlay. In this podcast I talk with Kevin Woods Director of Product Management at Cisco Systems about Cisco’s OnePK programing environment for developers and its potential impact on networks and business process.

Duration: 13 minutes 20 seconds

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1 @ 2:00 sec: Kevin lets first talk about why Cisco is offering OnePK? From the briefing I received its clear that this programming environment had to be in development for a few years, so Cisco must have been hearing this requirement for some time. True?

Merchant VP of Technology at Extreme Networks joins me to discuss Extreme’s approach to open networking including its Open Fabric, Software Defined-Networking or SDN initiative plus network programmability.

Question 2 @ 3:52 sec: Shehzad, Extreme describes an SDN architecture with four layers. Let’s describe that to the audience as its central to the re-distribution of network responsibilities and functions.

Question 3 @ 6:51 sec: Shehzad, Extreme’s initiative consist of four components: 1) Open programmability of networking, 2) SDN/OpenFlow & Multiple controller support, 3) support for OpenStack and quantum and 4) all of the above built on top of an open fabric. Can you talk to each initiative and how they are additive in value?

Question 4 @ 10:39 sec: What does Extreme’s Open fabric SDN approach bring to IT business leaders and how can they take advantage of it?

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Scalability issues have overcome what VLANs were designed to provide. In multi-tenant cloud computing environments with each tenant having many applications many of which require their own logical network segments, the 4k limit of VLANs does not scale. And as cloud networks grow beyond data centers, logically isolated subnets have to be expanded to include geographic scale. Challenges include application mobility over very large resource pools that cover multiple sites, while ensuring the same consistency and logical network policy constraints. Enter VXLAN, jointly announced last summer by industry heavy-weights Cisco Systems, VMware, Red Hat, Arista and others. Han Yang Senior Product Manager at Cisco Systems joins me to discuss VXLAN in virtual networking and the challenge to logically isolate virtual subnets in highly scalable, multi-tenant data centers.

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Shortest Path Bridging or SPB was ratified in March of 2012 by the IEEE. Its an active-active link protocol that replaces the older Spanning Tree Protocols. SPB is touted as a means to simplify the creation and configuration of carrier, enterprise and cloud networks by virtually eliminating human configuration error. In short, SPB is designed to scale. Avaya, an SPB leader, has implemented it within its data center and campus networking products in a hope to drastically simply the configuration of enterprise wide virtual networks. Paul Unbehagen an SPB co-author and Avaya Director working on next generation fabric standards and implementations joins me to discuss SPB and the value it brings to enterprise and data center network design.

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According to ABI Research, the worldwide market for hosted virtual desktops is forecast to grow from about U.S. $500 million in 2009 to a cumulative total of nearly $5 billion in 2016. While desktop virtualization is on the rise, few businesses have implemented a broad-scale adoption. Despite the robust solutions provided by virtual desktop software vendors like Citrix and VMware, the network remains the critical path for delivering an excellent and secure virtual desktop experience.

If you are rethinking your network strategy to support virtual desktops, you won’t want to miss this session. Our networking experts will share a framework to prepare your network to support highly secure virtual desktops at scale with a high-quality user experience. This framework includes:

Private and public cloud applications, usage models, and scale requirements are significantly influencing network infrastructure design. Broadcom’s StrataXGS® architecture-based Ethernet switches support the SmartScale series of technologies to ensure that such network infrastructure design requirements can be implemented comprehensively, cost-effectively and at scale. This set of innovative and unique technologies, available in current and future StrataXGS Ethernet switch processors, serves as the cornerstone of Ethernet switch systems from leading equipment manufacturers worldwide.

This white paper explores the network infrastructure virtualization requirements in private and public cloud networks, and how such requirements affect the design of data center network switches. It also describes features that are enabled by Broadcom’s Smart-NV (Network Virtualization) technology, part of Broadcom’s SmartScale series of technologies, engineered specifically to meet current feature and scale requirements of private and public cloud networks. Smart-NV encompasses comprehensive best practices for today’s high-performance data center switches, and addresses evolving needs of next generation cloud implementations.

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While the Lippis Report test were being conducted of the IBM System Network’s RackSwitchtm G8124E, G8264 and G8316 ToR data center switches at Ixia’s iSimCity, Dan Tuchler, VP of Product Management at IBM joined me to discuss the firm’s latest product investment. We talk cloud network architecture, Software Defined Networking and what’s unique about the new G8124E, G8264 and G8316 ToR switches.

This white paper explores the use of Web 2.0 applications in the enterprise, their impact on the performance of the network, and the available solutions in the industry for traffic visualization. It introduces Broadcom’s App-IQ technology, which is available as an integrated feature in its latest generation of Enterprise LAN Ethernet switch solutions. Together with integrated WLAN capabilities, these switch solutions form the cornerstone of leading switch OEM products, as they deliver on the promise of mobility and visibility required in current and next-generation networks. This paper also describes how this technology can help IT managers implement policies for Web 2.0 traffic patterns using cost-effective, power-efficient, network edge and aggregation switches.

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There are still many manual steps, such as phone calls and emails between IT teams, throughout the life cycle of a virtual machine impeding timely and efficient VM deployment and, ultimately, the expanded deployment of virtual environments and associated benefits. To deliver on the promise of cloud computing’s on demand application availability, tasks need to be automated. Infoblox has launched its Automation Tasks Board tools in the model of a Software-Defined Network to enable IT department members to initiate with the click of a single button multi-step, often-repeated and time-consuming network tasks while providing cross team visibility and auditability. If you want to build a real cloud computing facility, then you need to listen to this podcast.

You’re invited to attend the first Open Networking User Group meeting exclusively for IT executives, global network architects and designers taking place February 13, 2013 at Fidelity’s Center for Applied Technology, located at 245 Summer Street on the 14th floor in Boston, MA.

You’ll hear exclusive keynotes from exceptional IT business leaders at Fidelity and Goldman Sachs about their Software-Defined Networking deployment experience. You’ll understand what their motivations, results and concerns are so that you can make informed SDN deployment decisions for your company.

You’ll hear Nick Lippis of the Lippis Report kick off the daylong meeting with a presentation on the State of Open Networking. You will socialize with an elite group of IT leaders from firms such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, the Gap and many others who are either planning or implementing Software-Defined Networking be it OpenFlow, Overlay, programmable networks, network visualization and/or Network virtualization solutions. You will have access to a private demonstration area of innovative start-up firms that are driving the SDN market.

What You Will Learn

If SDN is ready for prime time or if it’s a university research project?

What the early adaptors have found out about SDN and if you should follow their lead.

Where is the economic savings that SDN delivers?

What will be SDN economic benefits; Opex, Capex reduction or both?

How to justify going forward SDN action?

Does your staff have the skill sets to implement an SDN project?

Which small SDN implementation in L4-7 services will have the biggest application performance benefit and cost reduction effect?

Can you replace specialized appliances such as load balancer, firewalls, IPS, network visualization etc., with virtualized equivalent and gain?

Which SDN applications are delivering the greatest value at the lowest cost?

How secure is your computer-networking job as SDN deployments accelerate?

You can register for an opportunity to attend the Open Networking User Group here. Please take note: An e-mail acknowledging submission of your online registration will be sent to you. You will then receive an official confirmation upon approval of your registration, as attendance is restricted to IT executives of large firms.
All the best,

The Open Networking User Group team

About the Open Networking User Group

The Open Networking User Group was first discussed at the April, 2012 Open Networking Summit in San Jose, CA between Nick Lippis of the Lippis Report and Ernest Lefner of Fidelity Investments. Nick was working with Guru Parulkar and Dan Pitt of the ONS/ONF during the winter of 2012 populating the enterprise tracks for the ONS summit while exploring an ONS East conference for the fall at Boston University’s college of ENG. In late April we decided that there was not enough resources for ONS East. Ernest Lefner and Nick Lippis were working on ONS East content and when that effort was tabled Ernest suggested that we do something smaller for east coast firms and thus the Open Networking User Group was born.

Today the Open Networking User Group (ONUG)is made up of IT leaders from Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, UBS and Gap Inc. This board that Nick Lippis of Lippis Enterprises manages created the ONUG meeting sessions. No equipment vendors are speaking or allowed to attend the conference, therefore, speakers and attendance is exclusively IT executives, financial and industry analyst.

This meeting was designed to have plenty of social time and demonstration interaction. The ONUG board has selected a small group of companies to show their technology the demonstration area. We hope you can join us and contribute to the evolution of Open Networking.

Virtualizing a physical network into multiple logical networks each with unique attributes has grown in popularity. This network design is popular in healthcare, education, travel and other industries. Network virtualization was available only to the largest of enterprises and service providers, thanks to its cost and complexity of MPLS and VRF-Lite. But a new approach called Easy Virtual Network from Cisco changes all of that by reducing cost and eliminating configuration and management complexity opening network virtualization to a much larger segment of the enterprise market. In this Lippis Report podcast, I talk with Sehjung Hah about Cisco’s Easy Virtual Network.

There’s a paradigm shift coming. And it’s going to have a huge impact on your business communications. It will challenge longstanding conventions of total cost of ownership, of deployment models, and of just how, where and when we engage with colleagues, customers and stakeholders. It’s going to significantly alter the communications status quo. And failure to respond will put your competitive advantage at risk. It’s the collision of five megatrends that will forever change our working practices, our relationships with communication devices, and our ability to work productively, efficiently and creatively. It’s as significant as the advent of the internet, and it’s going to usher in a new era of cloud communications. And it’s happening right now.
Is your business prepared for the Communications Tipping Point?

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